System and method for project process and workflow optimization

Abstract

A system and method for process control and management is disclosed. Various features and applications of the present invention may be suitably adapted to manage, control or otherwise improve compliance and/or project workflow processing. In representative applications, the present invention provides a system and method for control, management, verification, certification and communication of compliance standards.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 848,063 filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Sep. 28, 2006, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 826,877 filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Sep. 25, 2006.FIELD OF INVENTION [0002] The present invention generally relates to project process optimization, project management, process, quality, standards and / or compliance control, and project workflow technology. More particularly, the present invention involves a system and method for control, management, verification, certification and / or communication of compliance standards. BACKGROUND OF INVENTION [0003] All organizations (such as businesses, enterprises, agencies, associations, governmental agencies, private and public entities, for-profit and not-for-profit entities) conduct activities or transactions for the purpose of achieving organizational objectives. For...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0031] In a representative aspect, the present invention includes a system and method for project process optimization. The system comprises data that may be entered manually via a user or administrator or uploaded directly onto the system. The data may be separated into different organizational levels which may be accessible through at least part of the system. In accordance with various aspects of the present invention, the system stores, tracks, searches, analyzes, sorts, organizes, configures, manipulates and / or provides data to users in order to track compliance and / or increase total compliance with at least one standard and / or requirement.

Problems solved by technology

Such projects, with their many potential stages or events (e.g., planning, scoping, evaluation, assessment, analysis, bench-marking, design, engineering, development, documentation, implementation, testing, re-engineering, remediation, control, management, auditing, verification, certification, reporting, monitoring, change management, education, communication, and the like), may involve a multitude of human or system resources and may be complicated, time consuming, costly and / or manually intensive to implement and / or manage and prone to errors.

Moreover, in today's marketplace, such projects are frequently engaged and placed under greater scrutiny as organizations are faced with ever-increasing regulatory requirements with respect to their internal processes.

New mandates from a growing list of government agencies, ongoing changes in accounting standards, and escalating demands for information transparency have lead to increased regulatory compliance requirements and complexity with respect to an organization's internal processes.

As compliance complexity for companies and their internal processes increase, so do associated project costs.

Establishing and managing a project to achieve the organizational objective of complying with these (and other) SOx requirements is an incredibly resource-intensive task.

Management of comprehensive SOx and other compliance requirements projects with thousands of documents and numerous tasks is a difficult, if not near-impossible, manual task.

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